Hosanna! Lutheran pastor to retire after 39 years of service

Of the many accomplishments and charitable acts the Rev. John Nelson has been part of as pastor at Hosanna! Lutheran Church in St. Charles for nearly 39 years, he developed a skill set that even he is not sure how it came about.

“For some reason, through all of my years, I have been called upon to care for many who are wanting to take their lives,” said Nelson, who will retire from Hosanna! at age 68 at the end of the month, with the congregation planning a June 29 party.

His background would indicate it’s not a stretch to think this popular pastor would be a natural to respond to the needs of others facing a significant crisis in their lives.

Most importantly, he’s been effective in that role in his time at the church, pulling many people out of the depression overwhelming them and saving their lives.

“This wouldn’t always be (for) members of the church, sometimes it would come from the police saying someone referred these people to me,” Nelson said.

“When people invite you into their lives, the celebrations are wonderful, but I am humbled when they are at pain points in their lives and they trust me to help,” he added.

Nelson shared a story about a person who had just overdosed on drugs, calling him to say the kids were coming home soon and possibly would find a dead parent. That person had one request, telling Nelson, “I want you to talk to God for me.”

“When they do that (call him), you know where they are and you call 911 right away; but I try to get there before the police (to help),” Nelson noted.

In many ways, and beyond caring for those at low points in their lives, being a pastor for a long time means Nelson has touched thousands of people through various organizations and programs, in addition to sermons at church services.

He was a leader in establishing a new church for Hosanna! at Randall and Red Gate roads during the Great Recession in 2007, saying “I think it’s God’s economy, not ours, anyway.”

He helped Darlene Marcusson get the Lazarus House homeless shelter started in downtown St. Charles in 1997. Prior to Lazarus opening, he offered Hosanna! Lutheran as a place for homeless people to stay in the church gym and use the janitor closet as a shower.

It’s all the more impressive when considering Nelson’s only “call” in the Lutheran church has been at Hosanna! He started his pastoral journey there right out of the seminary on July 1, 1986.

“Hosanna! was looking for someone willing to work with youths and their families, and I had been a camp counselor for four summers and a youth director at a church before entering the seminary,” Nelson said.

He started as an assistant pastor in 1986, became associate pastor in 1989, and took the lead as senior pastor in 1990.

“It was not the normal path, as you usually go from church to church,” Nelson said, adding Hosanna! was always growing and creating new challenges. As such, Lutheran decision makers kept him in place.

That growth created new dynamics, but Nelson’s general mission of making everyone feel welcome and loved did not change.

“We have always had the same heart to serve people and to love Jesus and to love one another,” he said. “But as you grow in size, you kind of leave being a family only with each other and have to build in structures so other people can have a family within the church.

“We are called upon to reach out to the least, lost and last,” he explained. “The ‘least’ are those who are without, and the ‘lost’ are those who don’t have Jesus or a church home.”

The “last” are people facing life challenges, such as widows, those taking care of aging parents, those with long-term diseases, or those with an acute situation like a miscarriage, Nelson explained.

Admitting he is “by far, not the technical wizard of the church,” Nelson considers himself “an email guy” who has used that technology to get messages to members of the growing congregation.

He lets those with vast computer knowledge handle the church website, larger newsletter messages and general communications.

Pastors apparently don’t fade into the background upon retirement. Nelson will put more time into his “Caring for Pastors” efforts of the past several years.

“I am going to help care for aging pastors and their families, and for people who care for pastors,” Nelson said. His wife Martha, also an ordained pastor, is going to assist in this venture, which helps comfort retired pastors in their final years. They will do this work out of Messiah Lutheran Church in Joliet.

Nelson has always taught others to care for the less fortunate, Martha Nelson said, and he follows Matthew’s writing of Jesus’ powerful words of “Whatever you did for the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.”

“In addition to Hosanna! beginning Lazarus House, the church was the first to do a school supply backpack ministry, among many others,” Martha added. “John has been a wonderful husband, father, and partner in ministry all these years.”

For John Nelson, leaving Hosanna! won’t be easy. “I have been blessed and deeply humbled about what we accomplished while I was there,” he said. “And I love those people.”

But he’s not disappearing.

“I keep telling people, I will see you on the bike path.”

Shelter welcomes new leader

Following a line of devoted women who have made helping the homeless people of the area a life’s passion, Kristi Athas is a little more than a month into her new role as executive director of Lazarus House.

She took over for Julie Purcell, who held the executive director position at the St. Charles homeless shelter for four years, but had been at the shelter for 14 years.

Since its opening in 1997 under the direction of founder and executive director Darlene Marcusson, Lazarus House has had the good fortune of seeing Liz Eakins, Leanne Deister Goodwin and Purcell in the executive director leadership role.

Athas comes with plenty of management and human resources experience as vice president of Calamos Family Partners in Naperville, and HR director at CrossRoad Institute in Boston, Massachusetts.

It’s parade time again

One of our favorite days of the year unfolds on Sunday, June 22. That would be the Swedish Days parade through downtown Geneva.

I’ve been engaged in this parade in any number of ways, not the least of which was handing out American flags to kids along the parade route as a member of the Tri-Cities Exchange Club.

The club has been doing that for nearly 50 of the parade’s 75 years — and I joined other club members in walking from Anderson Boulevard to the train station with a bag full of flags for about 20 of those years.

So, give these volunteers a hand when you see them at the head of the parade, making sure the kids have a flag to wave.

In most recent years, I have enjoyed the first years of having the grandkids along to spend some fun time in Geneva — and to watch the parade from start to finish.

After all, this parade is one of the summer’s great events.

Did you know?

Nearly 37 years ago, Fermilab’s future role, or potential success, was in question.

The Batavia lab had just lost its bid to land the high-energy physics project of the time when the U.S. Department of Energy decided to build the Superconducting Super Collider, or SSC, in Texas.

The SSC was to open a new world in high-speed collisions of particles and allow researchers to advance more discoveries about the universe’s makeup and its potential in technology or medical research.

Still, it was a contentious topic in the Fox Valley area, as the collider tunnels would cover a vast area, including under the Fox River.

In the aftermath, Fermilab rebounded with the operation of a state-of-the-art cancer treatment machine that would signal years of medical research spinoffs, stemming from the high-energy physics work at the lab.

And, of course, there was always the belief Fermilab was the site of the creation of the World Wide Web, as physicists across the globe first communicated with each other through that type of digital network common in the lab.

When adding other discoveries, as well as prairie restoration work and buffalo herds, one could say Fermilab turned out just fine.

The same could not be said for the SCC project in Waxahachie, Texas. In 1993, or about five years after Texas earned the SSC bid over seven other potential sites, Congress shelved the project and the city was left with some deep tunnels going nowhere in particular and an abandoned SSC campus.

And then there was the concern about fire ants swarming the tunnel work sites and, potentially, damaging the tunnels themselves over the long haul. As a New York Times headline stated in 1988: “Fire ants to make building of atom smasher no picnic.”

dheun@sbcglobal.net